Talking Points: Minnesotans feel COVID-19's lingering presence
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn-- COVID-19 killed more than 15,000 Minnesotans and 1.1 million Americans. We thought it was over, but now we are learning that COVID never really left us. Esme Murphy took a fresh look into the crippling and potentially deadly symptoms, and why so many cases are going undiagnosed.
An estimated 5% to 30% of people who had COVID are now at risk for long COVID. Just in Minnesota, that means more than 400,000 people could have or still have long COVID.
Currently, there's no cure for the aliment, but doctors say treatments are improving.
WCCO Meteorologist Adam Del Rosso, 33 years old and a passionate tennis player, shared his unexpected and long battle with long COVID. In September 2021, Del Rosso caught COVID despite both vaccines. While his symptoms were mostly a runny nose and a loss of taste and smell, it soon turned serious.
A couple of weeks after first being diagnosed, he woke up one night with severe chest pain and knew something was wrong. He drove himself to the emergency room to be tested and was eventually admitted to the COVID ward for 12 hours.
Due to a backlog, Del Rosso had to wait a month before he could receive a cardiac MRI. He was later diagnosed with myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle.
"I was like, 'I'm too young to have heart-related issues. It was scary," Del Rosso said.
Years later, Del Rosso has resumed his normal physical activity but is deeply in tune with his heart.
"I'm certainly a lot more aware of what my heart is doing. If I feel something that is unusual, I'm on it a lot more," said Del Rosso.
The Minnesota Department of Health created a program to research cases of long COVID and to spread information to doctors across the state about what to look out for.
Murphy spoke with Kate Murray, the long COVID program manager with the Minnesota Department of Health, about the wide range of symptoms and recovery time.
"Some of those folks may eventually recover after several months, or potentially a year or two. For others, though, symptoms can be really severe and actually progress to disability," said Murray. "So there's a pretty wide range of experience."
The symptoms commonly reported include headaches, trouble sleeping and thinking, shortness of breath and profound fatigue.
One of the doctors working to learn more about long COVID is Dr. Greg Vanichkachorn, with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.
"Some patients will say that they will do something as simple as take the garbage out (and) they will have flu-like symptoms that can last for hours, or even days after that event," he said. "There's been an increase in the number of individuals who have reported things like new food allergies or troubles with constipation or abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting."
He believes a lot more research is needed to before a cure can be found.
"We need to do a lot more research to figure out what's really going on at a cellular level in order for us to be able to develop that, " said Vanichkachorn. "We don't have a cure, we are getting better at treating it. We know that people need help with their rehabilitation. And now there are some medications that we've added to our treatment period times that really seem to be helping people get better, even individuals who are two years or more out from their infection."
Twin Cities Doctor Hannah Lichtsinn, of Hennepin Healthcare, says her hospital is seeing an uptick in COVID and long COVID cases. She told Murphy the best way to protect yourself is to get your vaccine and boosters.
"If you haven't had any of the boosters or you haven't had a vaccine in over a year, it is definitely time to get back in to get that added protection. The COVID virus has just changed so much over the past few years. And the vaccine that we have now in our in our pharmacies in our clinics is very different from what we started with just because the virus has changed, " said Lichtsinn.
Talking Points airs every Wednesday and Thursday at 6:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., live on CBS News Minnesota.
NOTE: Below is a preview of Talking Points presented on "The 4."
